20240428 For the Glory of God Alone
Coram Deo • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship - Psalm 96
1 Sing to Yahweh a new song; Sing to Yahweh, all the earth. 2 Sing to Yahweh, bless His name; Proclaim good news of His salvation from day to day. 3 Recount His glory among the nations, His wondrous deeds among all the peoples. 4 For great is Yahweh and greatly to be praised; He is more fearsome than all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But Yahweh made the heavens.
6 Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. 7 Ascribe to Yahweh, O families of the peoples, Ascribe to Yahweh glory and strength. 8 Ascribe to Yahweh the glory of His name; Lift up an offering and come into His courts. 9 Worship Yahweh in the splendor of holiness; Tremble before Him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, “Yahweh reigns; Indeed, the world is established, it will not be shaken; He will render justice to the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, as well as its fullness; 12 Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy 13 Before Yahweh, for He is coming, For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness And the peoples in His faithfulness.
Scripture Reading - Ephesians 1:11-18
11 In Him, we also have been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who first have hoped in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 13 In Him, you also, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the full knowledge of Him, 18 so that you—the eyes of your heart having been enlightened—will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
The Coram Deo church conference
A close friend of RC Sproul asked him, “What’s the big idea of the Christian life?” He was interested in the overarching, ultimate goal of the Christian life.
“To answer his question, I fell back on the theologian’s prerogative and gave him a Latin term. I said, “The big idea of the Christian life is coram Deo. Coram Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.”
This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.
To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God. God is omnipresent. There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze.”
The theme this year was the fifth of the 5 solas, sola meaning alone. The 5 solas were meant to be a theological description of 5 biblical truths that build a fortress around the gospel.
They are Christ alone, Grace alone, Faith Alone, Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone
And so the theme for this year was For the Glory of God Alone
This leads to the question: if the five solas Christ, Grace, Fatih, Scripture and the Glory of God were given as a means of protecting the gospel,
and if we can see how the first four are related to the gospel
We must ask: How does for the glory of God alone relate to the gospel?
(1) The What’s and the Why
In order to explain this we need to look at for five, let me call them, WHAT statements from Genesis:
The what: we are are God’s creation
The what: we are made in the image of God, redeemed man is able to display the character of God
The what: we are to be fruitful and multiply
The what: We are to Worship
The what : We are redeemed
But now I want to ask, What bout the Why?
Why are we: created, made in the image, to be fruitful and multiply, to worship, why are we redeemed ?
And the answer given by Scripture is For the Glory of God Alone
(2) What does the Bible mean by “Glory”?
The difference between
“glory of God”
and
“for the glory of God”
The glory of God is everything God is, the glory of God is the sum and substance of all God is.
For the glory of God is the purpose for everything we do, in this life and in eternity, we do it that the true and living God may be praised and given the rightful place he deserves
Steve Lawson says this:
The word glory (Greek doxa) includes the meaning of “a correct opinion or estimation of someone.” It carries the idea of the reputation someone has. From doxa we derive our English word orthodox, which means a correct belief about something. It came to refer to a high opinion about a notable person of great renown and reputation. It indicates the honor due a person of high standing. The greater the person, the greater he should be revered. In like manner, the more we study theology, the higher our view of God will be. In turn, the more we will praise Him.
The Bible speaks of glory in two different ways that must be distinguished. The first is God’s intrinsic glory. This is the sum and substance of all that God is. This glory represents the whole of His divine being. It includes all the perfections of His divine attributes. This intrinsic glory is forever the same, never increasing or decreasing. From everlasting to everlasting, God is… We cannot give God intrinsic glory. We cannot add to or take away from who He is.
The Bible also speaks of His ascribed glory. This is the only rightful response to beholding His intrinsic glory. This is the glory we must give to Him. The more we apprehend God’s intrinsic glory, the more we will ascribe glory to Him. The greater our knowledge of God, the greater will be our worship of Him. A high view of God will invoke high praise for Him. The person who grows to know God more deeply will praise Him more fervently.
We see the intrinsic and the ascribed glory of God in this one simple verse:
31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
(3) How we can elevate our view of the glory of God?
First of all, by meditating on Two phrases:
First, For my name’s sake
5 Hear the word of Yahweh, you who tremble at His word: “Your brothers who hate you, who exclude you for My name’s sake, Have said, ‘Let Yahweh be glorified, that we may see your gladness.’ But they will be put to shame.
44 “Then you will know that I am Yahweh when I have dealt with you for My name’s sake, not according to your evil ways or according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel,” declares Lord Yahweh.’”
29 “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive one hundred times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
12 “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake.
Second, For the sake of my name:
9 “For the sake of My name I delay My anger, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off.
9 “But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made Myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
14 “But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, before whose sight I had brought them out.
22 “But I turned back My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.
Second, by meditating on the beauty and greatness of Jesus
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Third, by recognizing our sinfulness
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Fourth, by seeing the glory of God in the gospel
11 according to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
This is why you were created, this is why we are to be the bearers of God’s image, this is why we have been redeemed.
Not for yourself
Not to praise a salvation that you accomplished or earned or deserved
But to praise the Lord
26 For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, 29 so that no flesh may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
He is the source, the means, the goal
8 “I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.
27 to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.
Now the God of Peace who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep in the blood of an eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus. May He equip you with everything good in order to do His will, doing in us what pleases Him. Glory is His into the ages and the ages. Amen.